Virginia only won 2 games in the ACC this year, but the last one turned out to be the most important. The NCAA committee looked at Virginia’s overall strength of schedule and 10-5 record and awarded them the 8th-national seed in the upcoming NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament. The Hoos will face Johns Hopkins next Sunday at 1pm in Charlottesville, a team they beat 11-10 in overtime at Klockner in March. If they survive the first round, they could face No. 1 overall seed and Cav-killer Duke in the Quarterfinals in Delaware.

All six ACC teams made it into the tournament and 5 received national seeds: #1 Duke (vs. Air Force/Richmond), #2 Syracuse (vs. Bryant/Sienna), #6 Notre Dame (vs. Harvard), #7 Maryland (vs. Cornell), #8 UVA (vs. Johns Hopkins), and UNC (@ #5 Denver). This sent a huge message to all D-1 teams in this new expanded ACC age that while 18 teams might get into the field, it would be hard to exclude any Atlantic Coast Conference team, as they all play extremely daunting schedules.

How will Virginia do? Well, the matchup with Hopkins should be another classic, but barring a bigger upset than UVa-Chaminade, the winner will face Duke, a team the Hoos have only beaten once in the past 10 years. In the Hoos last 2 national championship runs in 2006 and 2011, they did not face Duke in either one of the tournaments. If Virginia can somehow get past the Devils, it is anyone’s game when you make it to the Final Four.